


The best is yet to come

by justhockey



Series: A strength I’ve never known [2]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Communication, Domestic Violence, Established Relationship, Firehouse 118 Family Feels (9-1-1 TV), Happy Ending, Healthy Relationships, Light Angst, M/M, Past Abuse, Protective Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Soft Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:53:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29541264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justhockey/pseuds/justhockey
Summary: “I left because he was abusing me,” Buck confesses.The room becomes so still, so silent that Buck can almost hear his words echoing around it. His chest feels tight, like the admission is trying to suffocate him, make him take the words back and swallow them down so they can all forget.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Maddie Buckley, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: A strength I’ve never known [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170119
Comments: 41
Kudos: 618





	The best is yet to come

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Praying_ by Kesha.

Buck feels off-kilter. 

Seeing Corey kind of sent him careening sideways for a few moments, but Eddie was there to pull him back on track like he always is. So it’s Eddie, more than anything, that’s got Buck feeling a little different today. 

And it’s definitely not a _bad_ different. Buck doesn’t think that’s possible, what with the changes to their relationship being exactly what he has always wanted but was too afraid to let himself ask for. But then he didn’t even have to ask, because Eddie was right there, offering it to him. 

He went home last night, didn’t stay at Eddie’s even though he asked Buck to. And it wasn’t because he didn’t want to - he _definitely_ did - but because everything is too new and too fragile, right now. They said they were going to take it slow and they meant it, so Buck had dragged his ass home and gone to sleep in his own bed. 

It didn’t stop him from sneaking a kiss off Eddie in the locker room this morning, though. And the smile that Eddie gave him afterwards was - yeah. Taking it slow seems like it’s gonna be a lot harder in the light of day. 

Especially now, with Eddie sitting so close that Buck can feel the warmth radiating off his body. He wants to just reach out and touch, to kiss him, or hold his hand, or something equally as _soft._ It’s kind of dumb, really. It still makes Buck feel giddy though, that after years of wanting it and months of denying himself it, he gets to call Eddie his. 

Buck thinks he’s doing a great job of ignoring the way Eddie’s proximity is making his heart react. He’s playing tetris on his phone and Eddie is attempting a crossword puzzle, when Chim and Hen appear. They throw themselves on the couch opposite, and Chim kicks Buck’s foot lightly. 

“Is Corey still in town?” He asks

Buck can feel Eddie react before even he has the chance to. His whole body goes tense, but he doesn’t do anything else - just continues staring at his puzzle, with a bit more of a frown than before. Buck appreciates it; this is his thing to handle, however he chooses to do it. 

“I - uh - I have no idea,” Buck answers honestly. 

“Shame, he was a nice guy,” Chim says, shrugging. 

It makes Buck feel - he’s not sure, really. 

It’s not a surprise, because that’s exactly what he was like back when they were dating. Everyone who meets Corey loves him. They’d go on a night out and bump into friends, or even strangers, and they would always lean in to Buck and tell him how lucky he was to have a guy as great as Corey. 

Buck would smile and agree. And then they’d go home, and Corey would get mad at him for flirting, maybe shove him around a bit if he felt like it - he usually did. So. Buck knows how charming he is. 

“Yeah, he’s good at that,” Buck agrees, and he know that he sounds bitter but he can’t help it. 

“Good at what?” Hen asks curiously. 

And Buck knows that he could lie here, and they wouldn’t even question it. He could make a joke and brush it off, and Chim and Hen would never be any the wiser. 

But Eddie is tense at his side, and it kind of feels like letting this go is the wrong decision. 

“Making everyone think he’s a good person,” he says. 

“What do you mean, Buck?” Chim asks, his eyebrows raised. 

He takes a breath and leans forward in his seat, but he looks down at the ring of coffee stained onto the table. He doesn’t think he can say this if he’s looking at them - doesn’t want to see the expressions on their faces, whatever they may be. 

“I didn’t leave because I was bored of him.”

Buck can feel Eddie shift beside him. His arm moves until his hand can spread across Buck’s lower back, a comforting weight that keeps him grounded. No one else can see, but Buck knows he’s there - knows he not alone. 

“I left because he was abusing me,” Buck confesses. 

The room becomes so still, so silent that Buck can almost hear his words echoing around it. His chest feels tight, like the admission is trying to suffocate him, make him take the words back and swallow them down so they can all forget. 

Eddie’s hand is rubbing circles against his back, now. It’s the only thing keeping Buck tethered to reality, the only thing stopping him from jumping up and running away to avoid this. 

He doesn’t talk about it for a reason. He doesn’t know _how_ to, not really. It was different with Eddie, easier because it’s them and they’re always easy. But Buck doesn’t know how to let himself be vulnerable in front of Hen and Chim, at least not like this. 

Because he knows how it looks, how it _sounds._

Buck has three or four inches, and at least ten pounds on Corey. He’s loud, and confident, and _big_ \- definitely not the kind of person you’d expect to become a victim. And Buck knows there’s no such thing as a victim type, but he also knows that if there was, he wouldn’t fit it. 

He’s holding his breath as he waits for a response. 

“Buck,” Hen whispers. 

Her voice is quiet and sad, and Buck can’t stand to look at the expression on her face. He thought that doubt or disbelief would be bad, but he thinks that pity might be even worse. He doesn’t want them to feel sorry for him, and he doesn’t want them to feel guilty either. 

“Buck, I am _so_ sorry,” Hen says. 

Buck looks up then. Chim and Hen are both watching him with big, tear-filled eyes, and Chim looks kind of green, to the point where Buck thinks he might actually throw up. This is exactly what he wanted to avoid. 

“It’s okay,” Buck insists, smiling at them both. 

Because it _is_ okay. They didn’t know, there was no way they could have, so Buck would never blame them for the way they acted. 

“Seriously, Buck, I just - I thought you were quiet because you felt awkward, you know? An old flame showing back up, and everything,” Chim says. “If I’d have known -“

“ - Yeah, Buck, we wouldn’t have acted like that if we knew,” Hen finishes for him. 

Eddie is completely motionless beside him. Even his hand has stopped rubbing circles on his back, and it’s now just gripping onto the fabric of Buck’s t-shirt. But Buck laughs and shakes his head, trying to show them that he really isn’t mad at them. 

They weren’t _supposed_ to know, no one was. Buck is kind of an expert at hiding his feelings, he’s been doing it his entire life. After Buck’s initial panic at seeing Corey again, he’d put a mask on and built his walls back up. He did his absolute best to hide it from them, and Eddie only picked up on it because he’s Eddie, and Buck is Buck, and they’re, well - _them._

“I know,” he assures them. “I know that, guys.”

“Buck - I don’t - I can’t even tell you how sorry I am,” Hen insists.

She’s leaning forward with her hands clasped together, and Chim is a carbon copy at her side. Buck can’t stand the guilt on their faces. 

“It’s okay, really, I’m _fine,_ ” Buck maintains, trying to ease some of their regret. 

But then -

“It’s not okay!” Eddie blurts out, his voice loud and insistent. 

He sits forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he holds his hands out in anger. Buck could feel his frustration building the longer the conversation went on, but he hadn’t expected him to actually get involved. 

“Eddie-“ Buck says, trying to calm him down. 

Eddie doesn’t seem to want to play along. 

“You sat there laughing with the guy who put Buck through hell!” He yells. 

And Buck appreciates that Eddie has his back, that he’s so angry about this on Buck’s behalf. But he really doesn’t need to be, and Buck thinks they maybe should have had this conversation last night, before Eddie had the opportunity to go all knight in shining armour on him. 

So Buck puts a hand on Eddie’s knee and shakes his head, but it doesn’t seem to help all that much. 

“Eddie, we didn’t know-“ Chim says. 

“-Well you should have!” Eddie shouts, and he’s standing up now, towering over all three of them. “You should have known! It was the biggest thing in the whole damn room and you still couldn’t see it!” 

The air feels thin, and everyone is stunned into silence. Hen and Chim look ashamed, and Eddie just looks furious. Buck curls his hand around the back of Eddie’s thigh to get his attention, and he looks down at him with a mixture of guilt and fury on his face. He reaches out a hand and rests it on the side of Buck’s face for a brief second, not caring that they’re being watched. 

He whispers, “Sorry,” and then walks away. 

He leaves Buck, Hen, and Chim sitting there awkwardly. Buck thinks about going after him, but he knows that Eddie will be okay - right now it’s Hen and Chim that he needs to talk to. 

“Buck-“ Chim begins, but Buck holds up a hand to silence him. 

“Don’t,” he says. “You don’t have to apologise, okay?”

Both of them shake their heads, like what Buck is saying is as far from the truth as possible. 

“No, Eddie is right.”

It’s Buck’s turn to shake his head. “He’s not. He’s - protective. But it wasn’t your fault, I did everything to hide it from you because I didn’t _want_ you to see.”

“We should have seen, anyway,” Hen says. 

And yeah, maybe they should have. Buck is fairly certain that if the roles were reversed, he would have noticed something wasn’t right. But that’s who Buck is - he prides himself on being able to read people and situations. It’s how he made it through a childhood with parents who didn’t care about him. It’s how he survived a relationship that would turn volatile at the flip of a switch. 

Buck learned it as a survival tactic - he doesn’t blame Chimney and Hen for not having the same intuitions has him. He doesn’t blame them for not seeing something he was actively trying to hide from them, not when he’s such a pro at it. 

“I promise it’s okay, guys,” Buck assures them. “I know you love me, even if you like to pretend you don’t.”

He winks at them and then laughs, hoping that they’ll finally listen to him, that they’ll stop playing the martyr and arguing with him. 

“We do Buck, god, of course we do,” Hen says. 

Buck smiles. “I know, that’s why I’m not mad at you. I know you’d never do anything to hurt me on purpose.”

They’re such a big part of his world. Hen, Chim, Bobby. Eddie. He knows they tease him, knows they like to make jokes and wind him up about Buck 1.0 and his past escapades, but he also knows that they love him. They literally walk through fire for him on a daily basis. They’ve been there every time he’s woken up in hospital, and they support all of his crazy ideas, and they hate his parents even more than he does. 

They’ve got his back, and Buck knows that. He thinks if they ever saw Corey again, they’d fight Eddie just for the chance to take a chunk out of the guy. 

“Can I hug you?” 

“Of course you can hug me, Hen,” Buck laughs. 

He stands up and she meets him halfway, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and holding him so tight that Buck can barely breathe. When she eventually pulls away, Buck is considerate enough to ignore the fact that his t-shirt is wet from where Hen has cried on it. 

She gives his arms a squeeze, and then subtly tries to wipe at her eyes. Buck just smiles at her warmly. 

“I’ll go check on Eddie,” she says, pointing over her shoulder. 

Chim is still sitting there once Hen has turned the corner in search of Eddie. He’s just looking at Buck, with the same sad eyes that he had when Buck first told them the truth. 

“It’s okay, Chim.”

He nods, then stands up in front of Buck. “I’m still sorry.”

“Thank you,” Buck concedes, because he appreciates it, and also because he knows Chim won’t let it go otherwise. 

It’s awkward for a few moments, as both of them just stand there, Chim knowing more about Buck than he ever intended for. There’s a heaviness to it, but maybe it’s not so terrible. Maybe it’s actually good, that Buck has people who love him enough to hurt with him when bad things happen. 

Maybe this is what having a real family feels like. 

“I’m guessing Maddie doesn’t -“

“No. No I never told her,” Buck confirms. 

It just - it was never the right time. He didn’t know it then, but Buck was being abused at the same time Maddie was. He did know things were bad with Doug, though, which is exactly why he never said anything about it. He didn’t want Maddie to worry about him when she had enough going on in her own life. 

He didn’t want to be a burden.

Chim looks conflicted. It’s like there’s something he thinks he needs to say, but he absolutely does not want to. It’s actually kind of amusing, Buck thinks - to watch him do the mental gymnastics. 

“Buck, listen,” Chim says hesitantly. “I know this is like, personal, but I don’t think I can keep this from her.”

He’s grimacing, like he’s waiting for Buck to yell or something. He doesn’t, though. Buck just laughs and nods his head. 

“I know, you can tell her. It’s okay,” Buck tells him. 

He knew that was coming, anyway. Chim can’t keep a secret to save his life, especially not one from Maddie. Buck knows that he’ll be telling her about his and Eddie’s little moment earlier, as well. 

The relief on Chim’s face is almost palpable, and he audibly sighs in relief. “ _Thank you._ ”

Chim holds out a hand and Buck takes it, lets himself be pulled into one of those one-armed bro hugs where they pat each other on the back for way too long. Once Chim is satisfied he pulls away, and appraises Buck with a curious look on his face. 

“So, you and Eddie-“

The alarm sounds before Buck has to answer, and he winks at Chim as he rushes over to the truck.

**—————**

Buck has just finished making the popcorn when there’s an insistent knock at the door.

He’s barely had the chance to open it before he gets an armful of Maddie. She’s crying and holding on tight, refusing to let go even as Buck walks them backwards so he can shut the door behind them. He indulges her, wraps his arms around her waist and holds her as close as the baby bump will allow. 

“I’m so sorry, Evan,” she whispers into his ear. 

“It’s not your fault,” Buck promises her. 

Her eyes are red and swollen when she pulls back, and she’s looking at Buck like he’s breaking her heart. He reaches up to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes, and her bottom lip begins to tremble. 

“Maddie, hey, it’s okay. _I’m_ okay,” he says. 

She shakes her head, looks down like she can’t even bear to meet Buck’s eye. It kills him, that she’s found a way to feel guilty about something she didn’t even know was happening, but that’s just like Maddie, really. So selflessly good that she feels responsible for everything. 

Buck tilts her chin up so she has no choice but to look at him. 

“I should have known,” she tells him. “I should have - I should have _done_ something.”

“You were going through hell Maddie, I didn’t _want_ you to know.”

She takes a step away from Buck, running her hand through her hair like she only does when she’s stressed. 

“It was nowhere near as bad as what you were going through, Mads,” Buck says. 

And it earns him a light slap to the arm for his troubles. Maddie is frowning at him like he made a big mistake by opening his mouth. 

“Don’t do that, Evan,” she warns. “Don’t compare what we went through. We both had people we love, who hurt us.”

Buck rolls his eyes affectionately. Maddie’s right, of course, and it’s the exact same thing that Eddie had told him just last night. He knows what he went through was traumatic, and that the extent of the abuse doesn’t negate that trauma. It’s just - hard to believe that, sometimes. He’s getting better at it though. 

“I know that,” he agrees. “And now we both have people we love, who love us back.”

Maddie’s whole face softens at that. She’s just about to open her mouth and reply when she spots something over Buck’s shoulder. He has a feeling that he knows what it is before she even says anything, if her wide eyes and even wider smile are anything to go by. 

“Thank you,” she says over Buck’s shoulder. “Thank you for taking care of him, Eddie.”

Buck turns around and Eddie is stood there, holding the popcorn he’d abandoned in his hands. He’s wearing one of Buck’s fire academy hoodies and the sleeves are a little too long, so only the tips of his fingers are poking out. It makes Buck feel all fuzzy and warm. 

“Always,” Eddie tells Maddie, a soft smile tilting up the edges of his mouth. 

“We’re just about to watch a movie,” Buck says. “You wanna join?”

He points over his shoulder, to where Eddie has taken a seat on the couch next to Christopher. _Big Hero 6_ is paused on the tv, ready and waiting for all of them to watch. Maddie smiles and nods her head. 

“Yeah, yeah I’d love to.”

Buck sits down in the middle of the couch, with Maddie on one side and Eddie on the other. Chris curls up against Eddie’s chest and lets his feet stretch out over Buck, adamant that he’s in charge of the popcorn. And really, who are they to argue? This is Chris’ world, they’re all just living in it. 

As he sits there, watching a movie and sandwiched between all his favourite people, Buck can’t help but think about how far he’s come. And he knows, without a doubt, that he’d go through everything all over again if it meant he’d end up right here, in this moment. 

“I love you,” Eddie whispers in his ear. 

Buck can feel himself flush in the darkness. “I love you, too,” he whispers back. 

And yeah, there’s not a single thing he’d change about this moment.

**Author's Note:**

> A second part for all of you who wanted to see how the 118 would react to Buck’s past


End file.
